Dear Editor,
I confess to a growing disgust over this Guyanese immersion in bacchanalia attached to this local season thoughtlessly called elections. This is just part of the many cruel farces and follies foisted upon a numbed and unthinking, even uncaring, society. No matter how artfully costumed and marketed, I observe a nation in tatters, and one groping energetically for new depths in the cesspool. A look is worthwhile.
For starters, there are these lush preening postures, these solemn, believed profound and persuasive pontifications. They make for a soothing read and sweet listening. But only for the helpless and lost; the committed and the terribly limited. Listen: there is that soggy political routine: democracy. The hands of the untruthful and the untrustworthy affix themselves to that smoky urn, which has turned out to be a smoking gun exposing the vulnerabilities of this land. Thus, the hazy splendour of Grecian originated statesmanship and Roman projected statecraft is misused for serial political molestation. A bigger lie has not been told around here.
Next, there is that Constitu-tion. It stands as the ramshackle foundation of this increasingly bare-knuckled prizefight named national elections. Then, there is a judicial process in motion that is ridiculed privately and paid lip service publicly as the litmus test; it brings this whole charade full circle, and reveals it for what it is to those with some ability and willingness to see and think. That full circle of democracy, Constitution, and courts is also a naked one. For, at the core, those form the sanctions of delirious group visions that are all about racial ascendancy and racial supremacy.
For emphasis, let this be said. Most, if not all, of the politically pious in this ultra-hypocritical society rely on that same chunk of national mischief that masquerades under the title of a Constitution. A product spawned by fraud, perpetuated in fraud, and all the while cherished for the fraudulences it empowered. And it is this fraud on which intellect and interpretations, and spirit and dreams are based, amplified, and projected. This is the bottom line of Guyanese elections. Manichaeism, the light and darkness, the good and evil, reincarnated in sharp clashing hues of black and brown. An incredible farce given continuous life through ongoing follies that sabotage at this critical stage of treacherous and unknown national footing.
Another farce is this national embarrassment and national humiliation of verbal and spiritual beggary before the international community to intervene. For the umpteenth time, there is this plea: do intervene. Do impose sanctions. Having long refused to get off knees, there is this pathetic prostrating through falling on the face. Reduce to its simplest forms, and matters amount to this: Guyanese cannot count. Guyanese cannot structure. Guyanese can’t think. And Guyana cannot agree on anything internally, save for one constant: don’t trust the other people. Here is another: when in trouble, holler for the outsider.
When there was time and opportunity for remedial change through the aboveboard, there was only preoccupation with the below the table. Now there is this haunting. The pain delayed then inflicts greater traumas now. There is more promised. No other society in these former British West Indies can boast of such a crab barrel of discontent and disturbance.
Rather tellingly, the international community has assumed the presence and openness of a 99-cents store: a place to run to for quick fixes, cheap cures, and weak 24-hour solutions. This is Guyanese politics and Guyanese politicians in the flesh. How it must smell before that community of white-knight rescuers. I seem to recall that it was this same international community (just like that convenient Constitution) that was scorned and dismissed, despised and damned, when the ugly moneymaking business was in full swing; when phantoms were let loose to roam and execute some parody of Arthurian goodness and justice. Now there is clamour for others to clean up the political incontinence.
In sum, a Constitution trampled upon, a judiciary with elastic binding power, and an international community of suddenly timely utility, function as the cover story for, and totemic centerfold, that is Guyanese politics. It does present an intriguing picture for the interested. Mean-while, the cacophony of the quarrelsome continues unabated in the street and disembodied, mostly turbulent, electronic space, and everywhere in between, too.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
